“With blameless evidence, everyone attends to his own work”[1] while, with some difficulty, one crosses the entrance of Galleria Raffaella Cortese in Milan. Outside, a plaque bears the title of the exhibition: Incipit, marking the beginning of a path which spreads across the gallery’s three spaces on via Stradella. After descending a few steps, on the right-hand side of the first room, a quatrefoil panel dominates the otherwise empty space. Its shape recalls the panels of the north door of the Baptistery of Florence, famous for the 1401 competition involving Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, who were asked to depict the Sacrifice of Isaac. Maloberti adopts this iconic form from Italian art history and reworks it by inserting a phrase from his Martellate[2] series.
Marcello Maloberti, “INCIPIT”, 2025, solo show at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, installation view, photo t-space, courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan – Albisola
In the second room of the first gallery space, a photograph of a crucifix is hung on the wall. The actual crucifix is simultaneously exhibited at the Albisola venue. This work enters into a conceptual dialogue with In search of the miracolous, previously shown at PAC during Maloberti’s last solo exhibition[3]. A life-size statue of the Virgin Mary turns her back to the viewers, eluding not only the possibility of a visual connection, but also the hope for a miracle, marking an ideal distance from the divine. Similarly, the crucifix conceals its human face, leaving the viewers in a feverish state of suspension and expectation, the same sensation evoked by the transition, as if on a small drift, through the three rooms, each marked by the same brass plaque. The spaces are turned into chapels for a via crucis defined by Giulio Dalvit as «non-progressive and without resolution[4]». Within them, the phrase “THE PUBLIC MUST BE LEFT IN ITS HUNGER” resounds insistently, echoing three times. Whether oracle or anathema, the artist leaves the audience disoriented in front of an assertion whose force is unequivocal.
Marcello Maloberti, “INCIPIT”, 2025, four brass plates, 45 × 45 × 0,5 cm each, photo t-space, courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan – Albisola
The plaques provoke the Milanese audience twice: not only the direct view of the crucifix is denied, but they are forced to engage just with its photographic reproduction, doubling the sense of distance. Yet, any confusion in front of the empty space dissipates when one considers the trajectory of the artist’s practice and the dialogue this exhibition, or declaration of intent, creates with art history. Maloberti’s panels recall the function of the blue curtain installed by Yves Klein at the entrance of the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris on April 28th,1958. That curtain was the only visual element designating the space, where the visitors were expected to experience an area of immaterial pictorial sensitivity, discovered by the French artist through his monochromes. Around the same time, Piero Manzoni was creating his first Achromes and actions such as the dynamic consumption of art, referenced by Dalvit in the exhibition text.
Marcello Maloberti, “La conversione di San Paolo”, 2025, inkjet print, 121 x 81 cm, 122 x 82 x 3,5 cm framed, courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan – Albisola
The relationship between word, support and material also evokes the work of Vincenzo Agnetti, where the dialogue between writing and medium, blackboard or felt, further defines the artist’s thought and theoretical direction. Dematerialization is a key element in Maloberti’s research for this exhibition at Raffaella Cortese, as the artist is closing the fulllness expressed at the PAC, marked by the dialogue between In search of the miracolous and the crucifix in Albisola, and opening a new phase. The artist allows the space to breathe and invites the viewers to take part in the progressive unfolding of the work, leaving them in a state of suspension, hope and apparent abandonment. They become disciples, witnesses of the word. The comparison with Klein and Manzoni, though one could also reference to Mel Ramsden’s Secret Painting (1967) or to the ironic propositions of John Baldessari, such as Painting for Kubler (1968), ultimately does not hold, as Maloberti’s inquiry is not aimed at providing a new definition of the artwork.
Marcello Maloberti, “INCIPIT”, 2025, solo show at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, installation view, photo t-space, courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan – Albisola
This is not a tautological or definitional work, where the word accompanies or replaces the image. Maloberti’s Stations of the Cross do not belong, in essence, to the conceptual or proto-conceptual research from the 1960s, which was defined and historicized with Lucy Lippard’s publication Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. In Maloberti’s exhibition, the aspect of shape is still relevant, as long as it is understood as a driving force, a transitive element[5], The artwork, born from the gaze and the dialogue it generates, becomes art in the moment it provokes discussion and escapes its designated space. In this way the artist hides behind the martellata and while remaining recognizable, makes the audience the true protagonist of his proposition.
Lorenzo Rebosio
[1] R. Longhi, Caravaggio, Abscondita, 2013, Milano, p.61.
[2] “Martellate” (1990 – ongoing) is a series of writings and slogan which follows up Marcello Maloberti’s artistic production.
[3] D. Sileo (curated by), Marcello Maloberti. Metal Panic, PAC (Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea), Milano, 27.11.2024-9.2.2025.
[4] G. Dalvit, Incipit, Raffaella Cortese Gallery, September 25 – December 23, 2025.
[5] N. Bourriaud, Estetica Relazionale, postmediabooks, 2010, Milano, p.30.
Info:
Marcello Maloberti. Incipit
25/09/2025 – 23/12/2025
Galleria Raffaella Cortese
via Stradella 7-1-4, Milano
www.raffaellacortese.com
is a contemporary art magazine since 1980
NO COMMENT